LVIII.

Taÿgetus still lifts his awful brow High o’er the mouldering city of the dead, Sternly sublime; while o’er his robe of snow Heaven’s floating tints their warm suffusions spread. And yet his rippling wave Eurotas leads By tombs and ruins o’er the silent plain; While, whispering there, his own wild graceful reeds Rise as of old, when hail’d by classic strain; There the rose-laurels still in beauty wave,[37] And a frail shrub survives to bloom o’er Sparta’s grave.